Exceptionally rare and important first edition, the only quarto edition, printed by Thomas Cotes who was also the printer of Fletcher’s ‘The Faithful Shepherdess’ (1629) and Shakespeare’s ‘Poems’ (1640). The play had not been included in the first folio of 1623, and did not find its way into the subsequent Shakespeare folios; but the quarto edition became the basis of the 1679 Beaumont and Fletcher folio text. The title states that it was ‘written by the memorable worthies of their time; Mr. Iohn Fletcher, and Mr. William Shakespeare. Gent,’ and modern scholarship has identified Shakespeare as the author of act I, act II scene 1, and act V.

Fletcher collaborated regularly with Beaumont, however this collaborative work between Fletcher and Shakespeare is unique. Based on Chaucer’s ‘Knight’s Tale,’ it was produced in either 1613 or 1614. ‘The Two Noble Kinsmen’ is set in ancient Greece during a war between Athens and Thebes. The narrative follows the title characters, Palamon and Arcite, noble youths whose friendship is destroyed by their mutual love for the beautiful Emilia. The subplot deals with the love and eventual madness of the Gaoler’s Daughter, who falls hopelessly in love with Palamon. The play also has echoes of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ as two of the major characters, Theseus and Hippolyta, also appear in the earlier play. The Rivals, a popular adaptation of the play by William D’Avenant, appeared in 1668 and 1669.

“The titlepage of The Two Noble Kinsmen states that it was ‘written by the memorable worthies of their time; Mr. Iohn Fletcher, and Mr. William Shakespeare. Gent’. Shakespeare has been identified as the author of act I, act II scene 1, and act V. The play was created in 1613 or 1614. The morris dance in act III scene 5 is related to the second antimasque dance in Francis Beaumont’s The Masque of the Inner Temple and Grayes Inne. The masque was performed as part of the wedding celebrations for James I’s daughter Elizabeth and Frederick, Elector Palatine on 20 February 1613. The name of Palamon, one of the principal characters in The Two Noble Kinsmen, is referred to in Ben Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair, first performed on 31 October 1614.The title-page of the quarto states that The Two Noble Kinsmen was ‘presented at the Blackfriars by the Kings Maiesties servants.’ A reference to ‘our losses’ in the play’s prologue suggests that it was written after the Globe burnt down on 29 June 1613. So it was perhaps written specifically for the Blackfriars playhouse. The Two Noble Kinsmen may have been considered for performance at court in 1619-1620. The inclusion of the names of two hired men (Tucke and Curtis) in the quarto’s stage directions suggests another revival in 1625-1626, when both were with the King’s Men. It has been suggested that the roles of Palamon and Arcite were originally played by John Lowin and Richard Burbage. The much younger actors Nathan Field and Joseph Taylor may have been intended for the roles in the 1619-1620 performances. (The) quarto, 1634 is thought to have been printed from a scribal transcript, to which revisions were made for performances in 1613-1614 and a revival in 1625-1626.” British Library, “Shakespeare Quartos.”

This copy is presumably the one offered in the Tite sale in 1874, also in red morocco by Bedford., lot 2762, which was sold to Hazlitt. William Carew Hazlitt (1834-1913) was a bibliographer and Shakespeare collector, grandson of the essayist William Hazlitt. Hazlitt published extensively on early English literature and in 1878 Mr. Huth engaged W.C. Hazlitt and F.S. Ellis to catalog his collection, the former cataloging English works, and the latter foreign. Hazlitt was also an assiduous collector and gathered in the course of his lifetime an impressive library of Shakespeare works and source texts, the basis for his Shakespeare’s Library, published in six volumes in 1887, an early and important edition of the works. The collection, itself of great literary importance, was sold in New York, 1918.

First editions of Shakespeare quartos have always been the holy grail of bibliophiles and collectors of British literature, immensely sought after as the high water marks of British culture and world literature, especially as these ephemeral printings appear so rarely on the market. They are considerably rarer than the folios. A handsome copy of this wonderful and rare work with distinguished provenance.

A very handsome copy of the beautiful first printed edition of Aristophanes comprising the first nine plays (10 and 11 were not published till 1525) and one of the chef d’oeuvres of Aldus’ early Greek press. The editor was Marcus Musurus, the celebrated Greek humanist, who also contributed an excellent preface on the reasons for studying Greek and the stylistic beauty of Aristophanes. Aldus founded his career on the publication of Greek texts, the first printer to do so, with this type designed and cast on new principles which he perfected over a period of five years. To his scholarly care we owe more of the editiones principes of the major Greek classics than to any other printer and the Aristophanes, texturally and artistically, was one of his finest achievements.

Aristophanes was the greatest of the Athenian comic dramatists and one of her greatest poets. For richness and fertility of imagination probably only Shakespeare is comparable and Aristophanes’ direct influence on English literature was considerable; the comedies of Jonson, Middleton and Fielding derive from him. Apart from constituting one of the surviving glories of hellenic culture Aristophanes’ comedies are an invaluable source for its social history. His surviving plays, out of a probable forty or fifty, provide us with an accurate if satirical commentary on the political, religious, sexual, economical and domestic life of Athens over a period of thirty six years. His changes in style and content match the concurrent constitutional and social changes in the State itself. The plays’ themes are invariably contemporary, a mocking mirror to the condition of the city. This edition has the benefit of the scholia of Thomas Magister, John Tzetzes and Demetrius Triclinus themselves incorporating much of the more ancient commentaries of Appolonius, Callimaches, Didymus and others, which were superseded in later editions by much newer but also much inferior work.

Comedies, Histories and Tragedies. Published according to the true originall copies

London by Tho Cotes, for Robert Allot, 1632.

Price on request

Folio, pp. (xx) 303 (i) 232, 419 (i). Text in double column, prefatory matter single, Roman and Italic letter. Ionic head and shoulders English portrait of Shakespeare by Martin Droeshout on title page in unusually fine impression (the author’s best known representation), woodcut initials and headpieces. Address “To the Reader (by Ben Jonson)” inlaid on blank. Lower outer corner of first three leaves slightly soiled. Wine (?) stain to blank outer corner of next three, reappearing very occasionally in text, a few marginal tears and spots, light age yellowing, last leaf dusty. A very good, clean, well margined copy (fuller than Pforzheimers and the same width) in handsome late c. 17 calf spine with gilt compartments, morocco label, arms of the Second Duke of Newcastle, gilt stamped in central panel on covers, joints repaired, directions to binder on rear pastedown, (c17?) autograph of Thomas Wright in red chalk on fore margin of t1, autograph of Edward Filmer (1717) at head of fly and address to reader, and of Viscount Mersey (1938) on fly. In folding box.

A handsome and important copy of the second folio edition of Shakespeare’s plays in the first variant issue and the second authoritative version of the Shakespearian canon. Published 16 years after the authors death, it differs very significantly from the quartos, and is largely reproduced from the first volume (1623). It is from this version of the text that all modern versions derive. Were one asked to nominate the two most important works in the English language, culturally, historically, and linguistically, the Shakespeare folio and the King James Bible would be the obvious choices. As Printing and the Mind of Man 122 (on the first folio) puts it, “the magic of Shakespeare’s poetry is potent only in his own tongue; but the great theatrical scenes, the great dramatic figures are universal. Hamlet’s doubts, the doomed love of Romeo and Juliet, Brutus’ dilemma, the Falstafian image, the characters of Jago, Petruchio, and Lady Macbeth are part of the fabric of western (and not only western) civilisation….they are more real to us than the history books.”

This edition is also notable as containing the first appearance in print of any work of John Milton’s, his prophetic 16-line epitaph on the author that his great lasting monument is “not a starre-y pointing pyramid” but his “unvalued book.”

A very nice association copy. Filmer was a playwright and author, whose tragedy “The Unnatural Brother” was first performed at the theatre in Little Lincoln’s Inn Fields, a place well-known to Shakespeare, whom Filmer much admired. When Collier attacked the English stage (including Shakespeare) in print, Filmer defended both in a sensible and well-written treatise entitled “The Defence of Plays or the Stage Vindicated” (1707) to which Collier was compelled to reply. It was one of the first significant literary controversies immortalised in print.

Henry Clinton, Second Duke of Newcastle (1720 – 1744), was one of the great Whig magnates of his day. Though he played no direct part in politics, his huge influence in so many parliamentary constituencies meant his political support could not be ignored. For his cousin, Sir Henry Clinton, he procured the ill-fated command of the British forces in North America during the Revolution. At Clumber in Nottinghamshire he created one of the most beautiful parks in England. The house there was demolished in 1938, and the present volume sold from the splendid library the previous year along with a great Audubon “America,” and the Lamoignan Hours. Viscount Mersey formed a remarkable collection of important early books during the mid c. 20. Every volume was chosen with care, and he recognised the importance of original condition with appropriate binding long before that became common.

This little book, ‘pusillus liber’ as Estienne terms it in his dedication, contrasting it with his great folio of the epic poets printed in 1566, is nonetheless important in content. It contains sententiae (gnomai in Greek), culled from plays written by Menander et al., promoters of the New Comedy that came into fashion in the third century B.C. In the sixteenth century, such sententiae were collected and cultivated as suitable for quotations in speech and writing, and little collections such as this were very convenient for busy men of affairs; indeed blank pages were left so that further sententiae could be added by the reader, a point made at the end of the section on the playwright Philemon (pp. 316-417).

The work consists of chapters, each devoted to a different New Comedy playwright (Alexis, Apollodorus, Diphilus i.a.), with by far the longest given to Menander, probably because more of his work survived, albeit in fragments, than any of the others. A short biographical introduction by Gregorio Giraldi precedes a list of sententiae taken from each author, the original Greek followed by a Latin translation and explanation. An alphabetical list of subjects, e.g. friendship and drunkenness, are followed by suitable sententiae (for laughter: ‘malum grave est ridere non in tempore’), mostly taken from Menander. Henri Estienne’s own notes on the interpretation of the sententiae follow, with examples from Latin comic playwrights, such as Plautus, author of the Asinaria, some of whom are only known in this fragmentary form. Those from Publius Syrius are again organised by subject.

Greek New Comedy largely differed from the Old Comedy of e.g. Aristophanes by its focus on middle-class Athenian life and the comedy of social errors. The plays are populated by a stock cast of foolish young men, wily slaves, kind-hearted prostitutes, and put-upon fathers. The Roman playwrights Plautus and Terence were responsible for translating the Greek works into Latin. Most of the surviving fragments of New Comedy have come down to us through collections of sententiae such as this; happily some larger fragments have recently been discovered on papyri.

12mo. Two works in one volume. ff. 41 (i) + 40 (ii), last blank. Italic letter. Charming woodcut printer’s device of a knight riding a bull on titles and on verso of last in both volumes, elegant historiated initials, typographical ornaments. ‘Francesco Mainarri Ferrarese 1765’ manuscript on title page, ‘Mutius’ manuscript in early hand in lower border of all four printer’s devices, ‘A Gio Antonio Balii (?) di Lugo’ on fly, ‘Guilio Magnani’ on blank recto of last. A little light browning in places. Very good copies in mid 17C Italian speckled calf, spine with raised bands ruled in compartments with large fleur de lys gilt, tan morocco label gilt edges speckled blue.

Excellent editions of the only two comedies written by the lawyer, poet, playwright, and monk of the Vallambrosian order, Firenzuola. He studied law in Siena at the turn of the sixteenth century and later wrote with unconcealed bitterness about the years he spent “with great effort and without any pleasure [pursuing the study of] the ill-served laws of the most noble and lively city of Siena”. He seems to have spent most of his University years in the company of like minded students particularly Pietro Aretino to whom he is most indebted in his literary career. Aretino later reminisced fondly about their misspent youth.

Whilst in Rome, in the service of his order, Firenzuola moved in the literary circle that included Pietro Aretino, Frasceso Molza, Paolo Giovio, and the future archbishop Giovanni Casa. He wrote an amusing satirical treaty on orthography in which he argued, in a comic vein, against the proposed introduction into Italian of several Greek letters, a work that was much appreciated by Pope Clement VII and Bembo, and lead a short lived literary fame. His subsequent works met with a lukewarm response in Rome. In 1538, in Prato, he began to write again after a pause of nearly twenty years. His dialogue “On the Beauty of Women” and these two comedies are the fruit of this period.

He died in obscurity but his works were posthumously successful, underwent several editions with critical attention and were translated into French. His two comedies are written in contemporary Tuscan vernacular and are typical of his best work. In prose, their structure, plot and language are fully entrenched in the genre of sixteenth-century Italian erudite theatre. The first play takes its plot and many of its lines and witticisms from Plautus’ Menaechmi. The second borrows its novelistic structure from Cardinal Bibbiena’s play Calandria. Both were performed in Prato at Carnival. An attractive copy of these elegantly printed works.

EDITIO PRINCEPS of eighteen Euripidean plays (though the title page mentions only seventeen), including ‘Rhesus,’ sometimes attributed to Sophocles, but often considered a later addition to the corpus. All the tragedies with the exception of ‘Electra’ are present, as well as the satyr play ‘Cyclops.’ Edited by Aldus, all but four are here published for the first time. Frequently based on myths, Euripides explores a variety of themes in his work, from Xenia and the role of women in Alcestis, to the revenge and betrayal of the cuckolded wife in Medea, to hubris and misogyny in Hippolytus, to the aftermath of the Iliad in Andromache and Trojan Women, and a new take on Odysseus’ dealings with the Cyclopes in ‘Cyclops.’

“It would seem from the preface that only 1000 copies were printed” (Dibdin), making it a set of particular rarity as well as beauty. This collection was the first to unite the disparate manuscripts of Euripides, and therefore formed the foundation for much later study of the tragedies. Much of the lasting importance of Euripides is due to his literary innovations which must have been striking to his contemporaries. He created deus ex machina as a literary device, prominently featured strong women and slaves for the first time, and focused on real people and raw human emotions. His influence can be detected in the works of Joyce, Racine and Corneille.

This copy is deliberately, for aesthetic reasons, incomplete of the register and the Aldine device of the first vol. The binder, most probably at the behest of the owner, wanting to create a uniform size for the two volumes, moved the last play of Volume I to Volume II, and then discarded the register and Aldine printer’s device as this now appeared in the middle of the text, rather than the end of the volume. The binding is very fine and, though unsigned, is undoubtedly the work of Bozerian, perhaps the most fashionable of the late C18th French binders. A beautiful copy of one of the most important of the Aldine Editio Princeps.

FIRST EDITION of a work begun by Prynne in 1624, condemning stage plays as “the very Pompes of the Divell”. The argument for the immorality of theatre is drawn from an exhaustive number of sources which Prynne lists on the title page: Scripture, 55 Synods and Councils, 71 Christian Writers, over 150 Protestants and Papists, and 40 “Heathan Philosophers” and emporers. Prynne apologizes in his introduction for the length of the work, which he claims is absolutely necessary if he is to adequately combat such an “infectious leprosie” that has spread to City, Court and Country. The size of the treatise also relates to the size of the market for printed plays: Prynne reckons generously that over 40,000 had been printed in the past two years, and worse, that they are in better quality than other books: “Shackspeers Plaies are printed in the best Crowne paper, far better than most Bibles”. Ironically, the text is divided into Acts and Scenes. “Despite its unreadability as a whole this book still exercises a very genuine fascination” (Pforzheimer cit. infr.).

William Prynne (1600 – 1669), puritan polemicist and sometime barrister, did not so much live as rage throughout the major political upheavals of 17th century England. “The Cato of this age” at the best of times, “an indefatigable and impertinent scribbler” at the worst, his prolific output ranging from the sinfulness of toasting one’s health to more topical take-downs of Milton, lead Anthony Wood to remark: “I verily believe…he wrote a sheet for every day of his life” (DNB cit. infr.). This work, about a thousand pages longer than Prynne’s usual printed pamphlets, marked the beginning of his notoriety: “For the publication of this work the author was sentenced by the Star-chamber to pay a fine to the King of 5000l. to be degraded from his profession of the law and to lose his ears in the pillory” (Lowndes cit. infr.), reputedly because the publication coincided with the staging of “Shepherd’s Paradise”, in which Queen Henrietta Maria and her ladies featured. Distinct from Prynne’s overall hatred for the theatre, was his seething disapproval of female actors (“imprudent strumpets”). Not one to give up, Prynne continued to write tracts against Laud and episcopacy within prison and without. By the Civil War he was restored to his degree and to Lincoln’s Inn, was an ardent defender of the legality of Parliament, and spearheaded Laud’s prosecution, becoming something of a political figure. During the interregnum he found himself in and out of prison, remaining a key intermediary between politics and the public through his continuous outpouring of pamphlets. After the restoration he lived the rest of his life according to Wood as a very affable keeper of the records and archives in the Tower of London, receiving visitors “with old-fashion compliments such as were used in the reign of King James I”.

Tragedies and comedies collected into one volume. Viz. 1. Antonio and Mellida. 2. Antonio’s Revenge. 3. The tragedie of Sophonisba. 4. What you will. 5. The Fawne. 6. The Dutch Courtezan.

London, A[ugustine] M[athewes] for William Sheares, 1633.

£19,500

FIRST EDITION thus (mixed first and second issues). 8vo. 207 unnumbered leaves. (A)¹, B-2C⁸, 2D6, (without last two blanks). Roman letter, some Italic. Grotesque woodcut ornaments on part titles, floriated woodcut initials, typographical headpieces, a manuscript list of the plays in early hand on pastedown, small library stamp on front fly. Light age yellowing, minor dust soiling in places, the odd marginal mark or spot. A very good copy in contemporary calf, covers bordered with double blind rule, later morocco label gilt, expert restoration to head and tail of spine and corners, all edges red. In red morocco box by H. Zucker.

Extremely rare first collected edition of the major plays of John Marston, the first issue with the original title pages to each play and one of two signed dramatists addresses to the reader, with the second issue cancel of the general title page, and with the preliminary epistle left out. “One other edition of Antonio’s revenge appeared during Marston’s lifetime. William Shears printed a collected edition of six of Marston’s plays. This edition exists in two issues. The imprint of the first calls the book ʻ‘The works of Mr. John Marstonʼ’: the imprint of the second reads ʻ‘Tragedies and Comedies collected into one volumeʼ’. Brettle comments: ʻ‘It would appear that in this second issue any mention of Marston’s name was omitted. A new general title-page was supplied. The publishers preliminary epistle was left out; anonymous title-pages were given to the several plays; and the two signed dramatists addresses to the reader were left unsigned.ʼ’

The Stationer’s register contains no reference to Sheares having any rights in Marston’s plays at all. Sheares then pirated these plays and perhaps took the risk of publication on the assumption that the owners of the copies might not be very anxious to claim their rights in a period when the attack on plays and players was approaching its apogee. In this year the master of the Revels ordered the re-licensing of old plays, and it also saw the publication of Prynne’s Histrio-Mastix, in a sense the summation of the Puritan attack on the stage.

Marston had left the stage and entered the Church in 1609. In 1633, in view of the prevailing climate of opinion, he was probably anxious to conceal his earlier association with drama. He may well have been in the city when he heard of Sheares’ edition or, indeed, seen a copy of the first issue, for we know he died in London in 1634. (…) The probable explanation for the cancels in the second issue of the 1633 edition is thus that Marston personally objected to its printing. (…) In the second issue of the 1633 edition the intention was to remove all traces of authorship: in fact few extant copies contain a complete set of cancels.” W. Reaveley Gair. “Antonio’s Revenge: John Marston”.

John Marston (1576 – 1634) was an English poet, playwright and satirist during the late Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. His career as a writer lasted a decade, and his work is remembered for its energetic and often obscure style, its contributions to the development of a distinctively Jacobean style in poetry, and its idiosyncratic vocabulary. A successful working playwright, he was associated with many different London acting companies, he exemplifies both the best and the worst traits of Elizabethan drama.

Although his works were consigned to obscurity for centuries after his death, critical interest in Marston’s works revived in the nineteenth century and during the 1930s; they are now acknowledged as an important part of Elizabethan literary history. “We are aware, in short, with this as with Marstonʼs other plays, that we have to do with a positive, powerful and unique personality. His is an original variation of that deep discontent and rebelliousness so frequent among the Elizabethan dramatists. He is, like the greatest of them, occupied in saying something else than appears in the literal actions and characters whom he manipulates (…) It is not by writing quotable ʻ‘poeticʼ’ passages, but by giving us the sense of something behind, more real than any of his personages and their action, that Marston established himself among the writers of Genius” T.S. Eliot. A very good copy of this important and rare edition.

FIRST EDITION. 12mo. pp. 334 (i.e. 330), (vi), last two blank. A-O12. Italic letter, some Roman. Woodcut printer’s device on title, small floriated woodcut initials and head and tail-pieces, engraved armorial bookplates of Earl Grey, Wrest Park on pastedown, and Allardyce Nicoll on fly. Light age yellowing, title slightly dusty, tiny part of lower blank margin cut away. A good copy in C18th quarter vellum over marbled paper boards, a little rubbed and soiled.

Rare first and only early edition of this morality play or, with the denomination that Cini gives it, “Commedia Tropologica”, written in the language of Pistolese, (from the town and region of Pistoia in Tuscany), and also using the language of the favella. It is important, not just as a piece of vernacular theatre, but as evidence of the use of these languages in the C16th. Very little is known about the life of Cini and this play, his only published work, has been almost entirely overlooked. Its dedication by the author to Nicolao Magona da Pisa includes an interesting defense of its language, hoping that it will not be mocked for its use of patois. He also praises his patron for having the courage to support such an unusual work, and hopes it will provoke a discussion about language in the theatre. He also uses his prologue to extol the virtues of Pistolese “per la moltitudine de vocaboli, che esplicano la gravidanza de concetti” and cites both Petrarch and Boccaccio’s use of the vernacular as examples he has followed. Cini considers that other regional languages such as “Bergamasco”, “Venetiano” and “Napolitana” would also be rich sources for future works. As the play is almost entirely dialogue it gives us a rare insight into the the use of a spoken regional dialect in Italy at the turn of the seventeenth century.

From the library of Thomas Philip, Earl de Grey, (1781-1859), Tory politician and statesman. He was made Privy Counsellor in 1834, holding office as the first Lord of the Admiralty till April 1835, and a Knight of the Garter in 1844. He was aide-de-camp to William IV and Queen Victoria. He was the first president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, a fellow of the Royal Society, a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and served as one of the New Buckingham Palace Commissioners from 1848. Besides remodeling his London home at No. 4 St. James’s Square (now the Naval and Military club) he designed the new Wrest House inspired by French architecture at his Wrest Park estate assisted by James in Clephan.

Claimed by Dibdin (Introduction to the Greek & Latin Classics, 4th edition volume II p. 108) and later bibliographers to be a “Second issue” on account of the misprint “post est” (in volume II, p. 108) having been corrected to “potest”. However, the most striking difference between copies of this issue and the copies of the claimed first issue is the paper quality, which is much superior in this issue than in the other.

The printing of this extraordinary set of volumes has raised the curiosity of many writers. From Pine’s own Latin introduction, we know that the text was first composed in lead, then page by page printed on non-absorbent paper from which the transfer to copperplates was made. The impressions of the letterforms, then, were traced with acid or gravers and the plates were etched/ engraved together with the vignettes and other decorations that fill each page.

We may assume that Pine wished to keep the printing forms for possible later editions, and also wanted to have complete control over his work at a time when copyright was much debated and was still only being considered for protection by law. A copyright law was passed a few years later (1734-5. 8th George II). A clean and very nice copy.